Jak And Daxter HD Remake - It's About Time!

GP blogger, ShrimpyXD writes, "Recently Naughty Dog's game director Justin Richmond announced at an Uncharted 3 press conference that there will be an HD remake of the Jak and Daxter Precursor trilogy coming to the Playsation 3 sometime in 2012. I, being a complete fanatic about the Jak series, couldn't hold back gratuitous jumps for joy straight off my chair.

The PS3 has seen numerous HD remakes such as Sly Cooper and the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus collection, both of which received critical praise despite their age. It was a no-brainer to remake the Jak series because for those who enjoyed the games get another chance to relive the adventure, and for those who never experienced the Jak games get a chance to play one of the greatest PS2 game series of all time."

Most of the HD collections are more than just upscaling. Trophies/achievements, leaderboards in certain games, reworked textures, aspect ratio adjustment, certain other technical features like increased depth of field and frame rate... AND upscaling to 720 or 1080p. Possibly more in some cases. And there's worth in having 2-3 games on a single disc that certain gamers like myself appreciate.

You're talking about downloading these games for free btw. Many people originally played these games on consoles and want to keep it that way.

you dont got to be tech savvy to download a free emulator off the internet along with as bunch of Iso's -_- and btw it probz is still illegal as ur making copies of that game by of which is a violation of the copyright agreement :P

HD Remasters are getting a little out of hand, IMO. Don't even bother unless you're updating all/most of the textures, increasing draw distances and going for 1080p/60FPS. If you're simply going to upscale and leave the game content as is with trophy support, then screw that, it's not worth $30. It's also incredibly lazy and a sly way to squeeze an extra few bucks out of your loyal fanbase who deserve better.

Yeah. And if they'll do detailed textures, you'll say you want bump-mapping and advanced shaders. Then you'll say you want more detailed polygon models and environment. And not to forget about true 1080p and 60fps or haters still gonna hate.

A complete remake will cost a lot more than $40 for three games on one disc.

Not at all would I want those things. That would constitute a REMAKE and not a simple REMASTER. A remastering would be simply to take the most glaring and obviously dated visual aspects and update them. Character models from the PS2 era aren't that bad, they don't look much worse when in HD. Textures, however, do. As do the draw distance and framerate. These are all things that are easily updated at a low cost. The game is already made, very little coding needs to be done and all voice-acting/SFX, cinematics and gameplay balancing are done. If PC modders can update an entire game's textures in a few months, in their spare time, FOR NOTHING, I think some paid professional industry artists won't have much trouble doing a similar if not better job in less time.

Or, we could just sit around and make excuses for why we are being asked to pay for the exact same game twice with little to no visual difference.

Thats awesome....I loved the 1st game in the series...it was "THE" truly awesome & unique new platformer. I was a Mario fan (moreso the 2d original), but Mario on N64 was very impressive for many reasons, but they lost it with Sunshine, as that game sucked really, and Jak & Daxter picked up the platformer crown when Jak 1 came out, then Insomniac stole it from them with Ratchet, & for me, Jak was unable to reclaim it with there sequels, due to the fact they were trying to copy Ratchet, by introducing them into the game that didn't have the mechanics, controls or gameplay to truly excel, they felt very tacked on, & the sloppy & not part of the series.....then they introduced the whole GTA map & mission structures to it, which also ruined the originality & beauty of the original.

The series lost it's originality big time with these gameplay introductions...I tried to play & like them, but found the shooting controls & mechanics too awful & frustrating found myself abandoning the series for the games that started with these features & done them waaaay better.

I'm really glad that ND have moved onto UC series, as it is THE BEST game series I've ever experienced in my 30 so yrs of gaming....they truly are masterpieces for me, as they have so many elements that are made for games, like the whole Indiana Jones type gamplay, story & adventuring, awesome gunplay, excellent characters & voice acting, smooth, freakishly good gameplay & controllability, wickededly beautiful locales & vistas, the whole history & discovery elements... it's just like the continuation of Tomb Raider, only with new characters including the lead, & Tomb Raider became one of the greatest games ever back in the PS1 days. But on saying that, I would love for ND to make another Jak & Daxter for PS3, but take it back to how the original was, as for me, that game is also one of teh greatest platformers of all time.

Now platformers are just a thing of the past, unless you like playing new ones with waaaaay outdated graphics on wii, or you get compilations like this...But what is the point if you've already played & finished them, or like me, you don't really care for 2 out of the 3 games. Luckily I am also a huge fan of, pretty much, the only current gen platformer on PS3 in Ratchet & I have only played TOD & part of POTB's, so I have the rest of Babes to finish, as well as my untouched copy of Crack in Time....so with A41's recent major floppage, it's great I have at least the last great one in the series to start & finish.

It's such a shame what's happend to the platforming genre, I for one, at 37yrs young will still support & play developers platformer games, if they are good. I am considering adding Alice In Wonderland to my collection, as I've heard really great things about it, but with many average reviews, I've been reluctant..... So if anyone owns, or has played Alice: Madness Returns & can articulate any great reasons to get it, or not to, then please do so.

@ Adolph Fitler Well said and bubbles. I'm also a big fan of platforming genre. Mario, Crash, Sonic, Gex, Spyro and others... (Recently finished De Blob 2 and liked it)

As for Alice: Madness Returns it has realy great graphical art design from start to finish. It is also a surprisingly long game. But gameplay and level design seemed mediocre for me. I liked collecting all the secrets though - it was the best part of game. In the end I just enjoyed the scenery along the way. I bought the game for half price, so it was a fare deal for me.

I'm not sure if anyone here realizes this but thy usually don't have to update the textures. You see, when you make a game, you use very high res artwork, an then you compress it and scale it down for the hardware it's running on. Then, when you do an HD remaster of it, you go back to your high res art and drop it in (scaling as needed to run well)

Uncharted 3 no doubly has crazy high res art that you wont see in the final game but the developers have it in their project.